Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Pierre Pidgeon

Finished Pierre Pidgeon by Lee Kingman. This book won the Caldecott Honor Medal in 1944. Set in Canada, by the sea, it is the story of a boy who is fascinated with a ship in a bottle that he sees in the local store. He and the shopkeeper discuss the concept of how the ship got inside the bottle. The shopkeeper tells him that if Pierre ever figures that out he will be a very smart boy indeed. Pierre earns an unexpected dollar when he assists an artist who wants to paint in a neaby field, but is frightened by Pierre's family's ox Henri. Pierre uses the dollar to purchase the ship in a bottle, but the bottle is later broken. Pierre is very sad, but notices how the little ship has collapsed on itself. He wonders, now that it is so small, if he can insert it into another bottle. He tries this out and is successful. He then runs back to the shopkeeper the explain how it was done.

This was an interesting book with a very original story to tell. The illustrations are charming, especially those of Henri the ox. Kingman was a children's literature editor at Houghton Mifflin in the 1940s.